For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

RELEVANCE

The tourism industry covers a wide range of products and services and is not always easy to define. The Survey of Tourist Accommodation provides information on supply (eg room nights available) and demand (eg room nights sold) for the accommodation sector of the industry. Where establishments conduct business in addition to providing accommodation the respondent is asked to provide details on the provision of accommodation only. The data are collected from respondents via survey questionnaires. For further information refer to theFramework for Australian Tourism Statistics (cat. no. 9502.0.55.001).

TIMELINESS

The tourist accommodation collection is conducted quarterly and contains monthly and quarterly information. Data are released approximately three months after the reference period.

ACCURACY

The Survey of Tourist Accommodation is a census and hence is not subject to sampling error. To combat non-sampling error, editing is undertaken to compare internal consistency of the data supplied and consistency of reporting from year to year.

The survey has consistently high response rates. Over 85% of establishments return forms, resulting in less than 8% of takings from accommodation of these establishments being imputed.

There are three data series produced from the tourist accommodation collection, ie original, seasonally adjusted and trend series. Original series data are available as time series from March quarter 1998, but users should take care when comparing time periods due to changes in scope and geographical classification.

Care should also be taken when comparing original data across monthly and quarterly time periods due to the effect of seasonal factors and irregular influences.

Takings from accommodation include GST from the September quarter 2000.

Trend and seasonally adjusted data are also available from March quarter 1998 onwards for hotels, motels, and serviced apartments with 15 or more rooms/units.

ACCESSIBILITY

The Survey of Tourist Accommodation publication is available on the ABS website along with time series spreadsheets and data cubes. Time series spreadsheets containing original data are available from 1998 for Australia and state/territory levels from Tourist Accommodation, Australia (cat. no. 8635.0). Data cubes contain a single set of monthly and quarterly data and a 15 month series of trend and seasonally adjusted data at the state and territory level.

To ensure provider confidentiality, some data are suppressed in STA outputs and shown as 'np' (not available for publication). Data are more likely to be suppressed at lower geographic levels. Provider confidentiality is a requirement of the Census and Statistics Act 1905, under which the STA is collected. For further information refer to the Confidentialisation of Data section of theExplanatory Notes.